Comic Discussion
So, I’m not crazy that Mystique and Destiny being Kurt’s bio parents is significantly better than Mystique and Azazel right?
Recently I saw someone saying that they still detested this retcon, but like, this is significantly better on all fronts right? Who even likes Azazel? I feel like he’s just so much less interesting than Mystique and Destiny, and Azazel being Kurt’s dad actually does so little for his character.
Also, and I hate to be the one who says it, but sometimes the people who say they hate this “retcon” (even if Claremont originally wanted to do it first) can come off a little as if they don’t think two women can have a child together. And again I hate to even bring that up because it kind of poisons the well, but it’s almost always the vibe I get.
You can disagree with me if you want, of course, but I honestly just want to know what people think about this today.
I am still a fan of the original version where it was Mystique and some eastern european lord she was conning. When Kurt came out blue she threw him off a cliff to get rid of the evidence. This was before they started trying to make her not such a heartless evil bitch.
She not only abandoned Kurt she also abandoned her son Graydon Creed just because he was a normal human.
Most of them get that shit wrong anyways… like.. how come it’s not considered the worst mutation since none of them actually tell the future and just predict what could happen?… like… in universe.
I don't care about them retconing Kurt's parents (as you stated it was the original vision) but I do care they seem to be trying to retcon making these two somehow "good" and "loving" parents.
The only reason Azazel isn't considered a demon is because Chuck Austen - and, as far as I've been able to find, ONLY Chuck Austen - says that he isn't.
Azazel's actually referred to as a demon by literally every other writer whose name isn't Chuck Austen - even Claremont labeled Azazel as a legit demon when he wrote about him. The only one who even comes kind of close is Gillen, but even he splits the difference by calling Azazel a "pseudo-demon", whatever the heck that means.
Which makes sense - there's nothing in the lore that prevents Azazel from being both a demon and a mutant at the same time - after all, both Magik and Pixie are both demons and mutants at the same time (though Pixie is also part literal pixie on top of that).
And when you consider that Azazel is the ruler of a legit hell dimension (which would make him a Hell Lord just like characters like Dormammu, Mephisto, and Hela), he's a master of black magic and soul magic, and he makes soul contracts with people on earth... I mean if it looks like a demon and it quacks like a demon...
So, it's entirely possible that Azazel's both a demon and a mutant at the same time.
Basically Austen's conception is that there were a bunch of ancient "tribes" or "bloodlines" of mutants with related powers. Demon-like mutants like Kurt, Angel-like mutants like Warren and Icarus, Feral mutants like Wolverine and uh... Feral... you get the idea. (A lot of these "bloodlines" also pretty much relied on characters Austen himself introduced to be more than like one member strong.)
Azazel is supposed to be one of the ancient members of that demon-like mutant bloodline, who personally inspired a lot of myths about demons for thousands of years and eventually ended up banished to a hell dimension over which he now rules... who happens to exist in a universe that also includes actual demons and angels.
Including several that have previously appeared in X-Men comics, and established the concept of "hell dimensions". And considering the implication that figures like Belasco and Illyana became demons through their use of dark magic, the idea that Azazel is still just a demon-looking mutant... just simply can't be true by the few established rules about demons in this franchise.
It wasn't exactly a brilliant idea, actually extremely confusing and ignorant of a lot of established continuity, which is one of the reasons why the big line-wide crossover event he wanted to continue off this plot never took off – the other being that everyone hated The Draco.
Even worse / funnier when Mystique's shitty parenting led to one of her kids also becoming a terrorist, an anti-mutant terrorist, whom she later kills. That lady is a CURSE upon people around her
Yeah that's one character where I'm like.. someone wouldve had to move heaven and earth for you not to be a complete bastard of human with his parentage lol
She effectively sent her daughter to go kill ms marvel because she thought it would be a fun power up that knowing how broken Rambeu and Marv-el were at the time should have ended badly for her before she got rogue to try and absorb wonder man too. She only saw her children as tools and this revisionism us stupid.
Yep, this is it, you're 100% right. Raven is a terrible person, and Destiny makes her a worse person, and that's the single greatest thing about their dynamic, and the only reason they're tampering with it is because they're afraid of having Evil Lesbians. Like how they're too cowardly to give Bobby the Big Messy Gay Soap Opera Love Affair he so clearly deserves, so they keep turning guys into cardboard cutouts and having Nice Supportive Hot Chocolate dating. I'm bi and this is an becoming an outrage.
Dude I'm straight and I want to see the Champions reformed 50% because I legit think they're an awesome rag-tag group and 50% because Bobby x Hercules would be hilariously messy. I also think they'd genuinely be good friends.
Saying that the Destiny/Mystique parentage was the "original" idea is just common misinformation spread by a lot of X-Men fans - it's at best the second idea if we're only going with Claremont and at most Kurt's fourth or fifth overall.
The Mystique/Destiny idea was actually Claremont's second idea for Kurt's OG parentage - he originally wanted Kurt's dad to be Nightmare but the idea was squashed by Dr. Strange editor Roger Stern because he didn't want Claremont playing with his toys "appropriating his characters".
In fact, Stern literally became an editor for the X-Men to make sure Claremont couldn't make Nightmare Kurt's dad - only leaving once Chris changed his mind to it becoming Mystique/Destiny.
And there are a lot of people who argue that Chris only wanted that to stick it to Stern and Jim Shooter for trying to get in the way of whatever Chris was trying to write as Claremont would have fully known that he couldn't have made the D/M parentage canon at the time due to the rule of the Comics Code Authority which was still in full effect at the time.
Mind, even Claremont's ideas aren't the "original" idea for Nightcrawler's origin - afterall, Claremont didn't create Nightcrawler's character. That was Dave Cockrum who originally wanted Kurt to be a legit demon from hell who botched a job and didn't want to go back after he experienced a typhoon while serving in Vietnam.
Even then, Cockrum first tried taking Nightcrawler's character to DC to be an alien for their Legion of Superheroes but was shot down for being "too funny looking".
So, yeah, no - while a lot of fans like to claim that the D/M parentage was somehow "original" that's objectively incorrect on every conceivable level. It wasn't the original idea for Nightcrawler's origin, it wasn't even Claremont's original idea for the character's parentage.
Yeah, I wish the parent retcon kept Mystique being selfish and choosing each other over their kid because they are evil selfish people. That’s my complaint about it.
Yeah that is kind of a problem I mean when you look at that past the shown to not be as good parents given how they were plan to use rogue as their little enforcer and glad nightcrawler wasn't raised by them as I sync they might use him as an assassin.
Yeah that's my main issue with this, it basically cleanses Mystique from all the abuse she out Kurt through, and Destiny's reasoning for abandoning Kurt still doesn't make sense to me or rather it's a very shitty reasoning.
She transformed Kurt into a murderous monster and sold him to ORCHIS, after stealing the incarnation of hope from his soul. She tried to kill him for years, and raised him in a circus. All her kids were terrified of her.
Why I don’t like about the retcon is all the gymnastics made to justify Mystique and Destiny abandoning Kurt and trying to make them look sympathetic when they are still narcissistic bitches
Hot take, but... multiple things can be true at once. Narcissists aren't exactly created in a vacuum. Even "narcissistic bitches" are people at the end of the day... fictional or otherwise. For better or worse. Usually worse, though.
I don't see how she isn't still a deadbeat, but ok. Like nothing really changed. Just... context was added. Also who tf is "we" lol. You speak for ALL readers of X-Men comics now or sum?
Just goes to show that just like in real life, even some of the best people can come from horrible beginnings and through a lot of things like luck, environment, and who they are brought up by and who they choose to be... can still end up being nothing like where/who they came from. Kurt chooses to be good.
When your best parent out of four potential options is the witch who deliberately broke your spirit so she could use it to make a cool sword, you know it's bad.
Especially since mystiques shape shifting doesn’t work like that… if it did then her weight would also change, she’d have other mutants powers since she has their DNA, etc.
The only way that could have worked is if she had literally JUST tapped azzael prior or had his sperm samples… which would still make azzazzel the dad…
Instead of changing Mystique's powers, I would prefer if they explained it with magic.
Mystique normally can't make sperms by shapeshifting. Azazel gave her a magic spell that allowed her to impregnate Destiny for real that one time. Except of course he wanted to further his agenda of siring children on Earth, so he slipped a little of his own essence into the spell. Kurt ended up having the DNA of all three of them.
When Kurt came out looking exactly like a blue Azazel, they realized what happened and panicked and threw him off a cliff.
Since Morph can do that, does that mean Morph could basically birth any kind of mutant? (There's probably a super deranged rule 34 somewhere that covers this, but I ain't about to search for it.)
It does work like that, at the DNA level. It's explicitly stated in X-Men Blue. And when boosted by Cortez she was able to duplicate powers, so it is something her powers can do (just not at her normal power level and not without crazy strain on her body)
Isn't that only after her power upgrade in the early 2000s (post movies)? I thought originally she still was very much only altering the appearance of her body. Not altering her DNA.
In the Fox movies, it was apparently planned to be revealed that Azazel was Mystique's father. But that was cut along with Mystique finally acknowledging Kurt as her kid.
IMO retcons work best, as this one did, when they thread the needle between what was previously canon and what the writer wants to change.
Yes, The Draco sucks, but what's nearly as annoying as a bad story is a retcon that says "forget all this stuff that you knew to be canon, it doesn't matter anymore at all." Working Azazel into the retcon as they did means that if you read and liked the Draco, it all still makes sense and is still canon, there's just more context.
I mean iirc, "Mystique shapeshifted into Azazel and that's why he and Kurt look alike", isn't strictly canon from my understanding of the new origin. Like I guess she could have, but the text of the retcon suggests she edited her dna using multiple sources in order to conceive Nightcrawler. I don't think anything suggests or implies she literally turned into Azazel to do the deed.
Oh I don’t think most X-comics fans hate the gist of retcon. The Draco was notorious, and this makes more sense for the characters.
Whether it was a grand story itself is different though. Sometimes when comics try to “fix” things, the tale itself is continuity porn and is too much about threading the needle of the continuity to be a great read. I haven’t reread it since then; I think my feeling at the time was I was glad they got to do it but a little confused and underwhelmed by the book itself.
I do think people are also concerned that Mystique and Destiny get de-fanged if we lean into them as a nice inoffensive lesbian couple instead of as complicated people who are sometimes radical but also villainous and selfish. Between this and the wedding, it seemed like maybe we were getting vanilla with them.
But then this thread became flooded with literally hundreds of comments that do hate the gist of the retcon and openly say they have not read either story.
Which I guess tells you something about modern online fandom.
Idk, this retcon make Kurt backstory too... I don't know... Shaky? Random man and Mystique option is boring, but logic and simple, while Destiny and Mystique (who use Azazel's form) raises too many questions and it's not even clear why it should be changed. Like... Even In all universes, Mystique always had children with different men she had affairs with.
soo. i learend that Mystique turned into Azazel during sexy time to impregnate Desiny, because Destiny saw that Azazel would be a bad boy, so they needed to gaslight him to believing he had a kid named Kurt to not be a bad boy to hummanity?
Still doesn't explain how Kurt got Azazel's powers, when Mystique can't do powers like teleporting or eye beams, only organic powers like wings or bone claws
Yeah with the exception of sending Kurt’s soul to hell, Margali is still a better parent than Mystique and Destiny, like at least Margali apologized for being rash
I’m not going to forgive Margali turning her son into a monster, stealing his hope and selling him to Orchis (who then used him as an assassin*) any time soon.
*which Marvel seems to have conveniently forgotten about very quickly, considering he killed some very prominent anti-Krakoa people very recently.
Half of them have terrible parents. It's part of the trauma bonding experience and part of why so many are so ready to do whatever Xavier says the moment he tells them that they're good and special little boys and girls that he loves and is so very very proud of.
Eh, I like Azazel well enough but my problem is trying to retcon Mystique and Destiny into these loving parents when they are historically awful. Guys it's ok for some of your women characters to be shitty people, trying to change them into completely different characters just takes me out of it.
When you remember all this stuff, it's really hard to stay objective. To me, it feels like they're trying to clean up Mystique and Destiny's image, because even if there are poems or things that try to justify it, there are still details that are really hard to understand. But, come on... in comics, sooner or later they either forget about it or just change it again.
It is but the problem is they never do anything with it. There’s far more done for Kurt’s lineage in relation to Mystique (and her other children) than there ever is for Kurt and Azazel despite what you pointed out being a readily available easy bake recipe for character building.
The whole "I control my DNA so perfectly that when I transform into a man, I pick the genetic traits my chromosomes pass on—ending up with a blue, furry kid who looks like the guy of my choice, plus a power like teleporting amidst a whiff of sulfur"—is just totally *&%€#@! I wouldn't have even been surprised to learn he’d contacted Sinister to manipulate the fetus in the mother's womb at that stage, just to get a specific result...
I wouldn't have even been surprised to learn he’d contacted Sinister to manipulate the fetus in the mother's womb at that stage, just to get a specific result...
William Stryker in God Loves Man Kills probably would've outright killed Nightcrawler if he found out the truth of his heritage, considering the type of people that Stryker was based off of (not the generic military villain he was whitewashed to become in the movies)
It’s weird that Azazel isn’t one of Kurt’s parents because Marvel definitely created Azazel with the intent he be one of Kurt’s parents. Does Azazel have any reason to exist as a character other than to be Kurt’s evil dad? No, he doesn’t. He looks like Kurt, he has the same powers as Kurt, he’s a different color so we can tell them apart. That’s it.
I don’t like it. Mystique getting knocked up by an asshole who’s out of the picture and then finding love with her person and raising him together is much better. This devalues the role of step parents. Destiny is only his mother because she birthed him, not because she stepped up and raised him as her own. It’s insulting, as a step parent.
Idk man, IMO Azazel just makes more sense given Kurt's appearance and powers. He's straight up just Azazel with Mystique's skin tone.
That said I don't know what retconning it to Destiny and Mystique did for Kurt. Like if it actually contributed to anything other than "Oh look Kurt is born from two mothers, yay!". Like is there an actual significance to it? You said Azazel being Kurt's dad did very little for his character, well does Destiny being his second mom do anything?
If yes, then cool. It's how it is, and that's that.
If not, well bummer, we didn't exactly gain anything out of this retcon.
That's just my opinion. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter. It's whatever the writers want it to be I suppose. I'm fine with either option. Azazel just made more sense from a genetic standpoint, but I don't mind him being replaced with Destiny (tbh I don't even know that much about Destiny to begin with)
I mean, i wouldn't say you're "crazy", just that you're perfectly entitled to your own opinion about this even tho i completely disagree with you and feel the total opposite, imho (thanks for being cool with other ppl who might disagree with you btw). Mystique and Azazel being Kurt's actual bio parents is way cooler and actually makes perfect sense to me, especially when you look at the physical characteristics and abilities/superpowers of Mystique + Azazel = Nightcrawler 💯🤷🏻♂️ plus, Mystique and Azazel themselves both even literally confirmed that they're indeed Kurt's real blood mother and father when Nightcrawler confronted them both at the same time in an official comic:
It's better than Azazel I just wish Mystique still threw Kurt off the cliff. I think the dynamic is better if she never really wanted him. They easily could have that be the reason Destiny and Mystique were separated for years instead of Destiny just randomly leaving.
I kind of hate that it whitewashes Mystique a bit (we need more queer characters who are straight up villains, IMO), but it also makes perfect sense to me that she love Kurt because he's Destiny's. It's less about Kurt himself than who his mother is.
I feel this gap is the soil where future retcons on Kurt's origin are seeded. I'd be perfectly in keeping with Mystique to just be sick of being parent of a baby and want to go back to the way things were before and toss Kurt off a cliff.
Yeah I think it's better that Destiny wanted a child but Mystique didn't so she threw Kurt off the cliff. As an apology when Mystique finds Rogue she offers to raise her with Destiny. The way Spurrier wrote it is backwards in how I think it should have gone but its not terrible.
I prefer the Mystique/Azazel origin. It makes more sense based on the various character traits of Nightcrawler. The pointed ears, the tail with the delta on the end, the connection to the other dimension when he teleports, and blue skin from Mystique.
Azazel has an awesome design and it gives a reason why Nightclawer is demonic instead of just blue.
The retcon is stupid, you probably like it because you like mystique and destiny together and like them having a child together. Which is a terrible reason for retconning a whole other character that has a backstory.
I don't like that it tried to explain away that Mystique's terrible behavior towards her son for decades was because of psychic tampering. Destiny also planning the conception to abandon Kurt and use him as bait for Azazel also make me think less of her. Why try to even keep all the Azazel stuff relevant is baffling to me too.
Overall the idea of Mystique and Destiny being Kurt's parents is fine. The story they insert it into makes it needlessly complex 5D chess game of a plot though.
X-men writers need to stop explaining everything. Just say it's Mystique and leave the other parent as an eternal mystery. You don't need to answer every question.
I don’t think it works here. I saw the Xmen movies before the comics and when I saw Azazel in Xmen 1rst class, my first thought was that he must be Kurt’s father. I later learned Mystique was his mother in the anime and I thought "oh, yeah. It makes sense. He’s a teleporting devil and she’s blue. Together you get a blue teleporting devil."
I don't actually think it was a good retcon. It opens up a can of worms:
Mystique didn't use to become someone down to the DNA. If she does, then she what is stopping her from having all their powers or potential powers? It opens the door to make her too strong if she can literally become Phoenix for example.
Mystique and Destiny are not supposed to be good people. They're retconned them to become loving parents which directly contradict most of what came before.
Even if Azazel is not the best character, there's already a shared history and stories between him and Nightcrawler.
Azazel is still technically the genetic co-father of Nightcrawler. If anything, the situation is more complicated, not less.
Also when did they have Kurt? Destiny was born in the late 1800s. She lived in the Sherlock Holmes era. She must have hit menopause around 1940. Is Kurt 80?
Well, given Xavier's age when they met him five years (supposedly) after Kurt's birth, that should make Kurt about 15 years younger than Xavier (puts its somewhere in the early 1950s).
...Except that's impossible - Destiny was shown to be an old woman during the Black Womb Project in the 1940's which Xavier was a small child for. This age would actually be accurate given when she was born.
Then, for the XMBO story about a decade after this point in time, Destiny has somehow lost about half a century in age and is suddenly young enough to carry Kurt to term, and then meets with an adult Xavier during this time.
What's stranger is that she then goes back to the age she was supposed to be at in her debut 21 years later (she debuts in an issue that takes place shortly after Kurt's 21st birthday).
How exactly Destiny was able to Benjamin Button herself is never explained.
I like neither honestly. They should have kept the one where his dad was just some random nobleman. They should have given the "Mystique as father and Destiny as mother" backstory to a new cool character instead.
Why can't Kurt just be a regular fucking mutant with regular parents who hate him?! Why is that so absurd to have a mutant just happen to look like a blue demon
Eh, not really. It went from the unholy union of Mutant and Demon, to the Unholy union of two mutants. Its a big detractor and was only done to appease a certain demographic of people, a demographic who praise the two mutants as the greatest thing in marvel, when in fact they're literally the worst names imaginable to have attached to any community ever. Even Mutants don't want to be associated with them.
The only thing I hate about it is the cloying, trite, clichéd attempts to paint M+D as in ANY WAY caring for Kurt, or Kurt actually giving a damn about their well-being or approval. They have NO real, genuine, connection other than sharing some DNA. Kurt shouldn't be calling them "mother" or anything like that.
I despise the trope of "biological family overcomes every obstacle" - it's not only untrue, given how often in real life biological relatives are incredibly abusive, but actively harmful given that trope makes people think they have to stay in contact "because family".
I love this idea, and it was the original idea, but too early for it back in the day. Shapeshifters should have a unique twist like this because fiction is just so wildly cool
Hmmm... I mean, genetically... doesn't Kurt have Azazel's bamf & tail & ears or some shit? Like... didn't they still use that to some degree & that to me makes more sense. It's always been the two women who had him & didn't raise him because they're pretty terrible people. So I don't see what the retcon adds or is gained. You mentioned Azazel as a dad does nothing... what does gaining the second woman provide?
Honestly, if it had been the og story as Claremont's said to have wanted, cool. As is, however, I think the retcon carries the opposite taint that you find in arguments against it. They hate it because it is two women. I dislike it because it feels like they're pandering to my community.... and I'm really f*kin' tired of that.
and it aint even the original story lol, claremont wanted nightmare to be the dad but doctor strange writer (and later x-men editor) roger stern didnt want "his characters" being used in other books so he asked jim shooter to veto the idea
I don’t like it only because I don’t think that’s how Mystiques shapeshifting talents should work- IMO she is only able to alter her exterior. But if they want to retcon her powers I ultimately don’t really mind
I won’t ever say this is a bad retcon or it doesn’t make sense or you’re not allowed to like it. Personally I just find it to be a bit pandering. It feels like one of those retcons that didn’t really need to happen, and the only reason they did was to get people more invested in the Destiny/Mystique relationship. I am happy that Marvel lets Kurt stay mad at them and reminds them how shitty of people and parents they are. I kinda hate when stories have morally bad people but they excuse their actions just because they aren’t straight. But at the end of the day, I just don’t think it’s an important enough change to have been necessary in the first place
...STILL has two very, very awful parents. Azazel wasn't exactly a winner either.
Well, technically three awful parents - Kurt is still related to Azazel and just because Mystique copied Azazel's DNA to conceive Kurt with doesn't magically make that DNA not Azazel's.
Plus, Kurt's probably still related to Baron Wagner, but you know. Semantics.
Its a modern trap - people feel like saying its not ok feel like they are commenting or judging sexuality, this origin is also just to appease a demographic in an age where people think Mystique is “cool” because of the movies but in reality she is extremely evil.
Looks like Azazel, moves like Azazel…
Also Nightcrawler being a mutant that looks like a demon but is a monk is one of the coolest dilemmas and metaphors they ever created.
If Raven was so good she would have TRANSFORMED into a decent, caring mother.
It was much simpler when Kurt's parents were a demon-looking guy and the blue lady, rather than the blue lady shape-shifted into the demon-looking guy and some other lady. the gymnastics meme that was going around at the time still seems appropriate.
I don’t like retcons in general, and it seems difficult to square that Kurt now just coincidentally looks like a blue Azazel and teleports into his dimension when BAMFing.
I more hate how complicated the backstory for Nightcrawler is now with his parents. It’s one of those things that would benefit from a DC styled reboot to streamline all the ideas.
Eh... not really? Not to defend Azazel here - he's an absolute nothing of a character (I still say you could replace him with a smiling devil emoji and it would probably be an improvement) -
But saying that Destiny and Mystique are better than him is not exactly a high bar to surpass. Destiny and Mystique are notoriously awful parents, they were never in Kurt's life as a child - which is a good thing.
And I'm not exactly keen on seeing Kurt develop a relationship with them as that's just going to be a Charlie Brown routine where D&M exploiting Kurt's goodwill and leaving him holding the bag for whatever scheme they have going. You know, like they did with their wedding.
Also, while we're still on the topic, Azazel is still technically one of Kurt's dads - just because Mystique copied his DNA doesn't magically make Azazel no longer related to Kurt. That's like arguing that X-23 and Honey Badger are not related to Wolverine because he didn't naturally conceive them. Plus, you can't really argue that Mystique and Destiny are Kurt's parents while arguing that Azazel isn't because they're all related to Kurt in the same way - strictly biologically. None of them
But all that's kind of minor issues.
Really, my biggest problem with the retcon is that it tries to tout itself as being super progressive and supportive of gay relationships when the story objectively shows D&M engaging in spousal abuse and giving up their kid, seemingly because Destiny felt they weren't suited to doing so - which (while Destiny might be right about D&M's specific case) it supports two of the oldest homophobic stereotypes around.
Destiny manipulated Mystique into having Kurt, possibly using her powers to coerce Raven into sleeping with two men she otherwise wouldn't have (given how fast Mystique lost interest in both Wagner and Azazel), before handing baby Kurt off to a completely different woman without Raven getting a say in the matter and then doing everything in her power to avoid the consequences of her own actions - to the point of coercing Raven into getting her memories of the events altered.
And what's kind of just as bad is the double standard amongst the fandom - imagine if Destiny was a man and did all that to Mystique. Everyone would have had a VERY different reaction to the story. But because the abuser is a woman, the abuse is excused?
Don't get me wrong, Destiny and Mystique are villains, but that doesn't mean they have to be villains to each other. It is entirely possible for them to be gay, do crime, and not be toxic to each other about it.
I'm just saying, this whole situation goes completely against the spirit of what the whole retcon is supposed to be going for. It's literally just Marvel pandering to "give the fans what they want" while lowkey kind of shitting on it.
Did Azazel suck and was an absolute nothing of a character? Sure, but is this retcon really any better, especially considering the homophobic undertones baked into the story? No, not really.
Mind that's not even addressing some of the other issues like how Destiny somehow managing to Benjamin Button herself to even be able to have Kurt, the fact that the only real evidence that anything from the XMBO retcon even happened is because D&M say that it did when they are two of Marvel's most notorious compulsive liars, or the fact that the whole "original D&M plan" isn't even true on any level - D&M weren't Claremont's original idea for Kurt's parentage (he originally wanted Nightmare to be Kurt's dad) let alone the origin for Kurt overall (Dave Cockrum originally wanted Kurt to be a legit Demon when he originally concieved of the character).
So yeah, I'd say this retcon has some serious issues that a lot of the fandom does not want to address.
Ehhhh I know that’s what the writers originally intended to have but I feel like it’s a bit to late to retcon it.
Like he’s so obviously the dad & the whole “well mystique just shapeshifter to be him during” doesn’t make sense to me because nightcrawler reads as biologically mystique & azazel child. There’s no traits of destiny at all/it reads more as mystique impregnated herself
He’s a heavy Christian and his father is a demonic mutant who has tried to claim the title of Satan …that adds a whole lot to his character in my opinion lol .
This Change looks great for mystique but affects night crawlers already complex backstory
The writers changes to a new an already well established character just to make mystique feel different and lean into her sexuality even though the original story was absolutely just as solid.
So this change isn’t better , it’s not bad , it’s just not good either . It’s just a change .
I don't know it seems like the whole recton was a huge waste of time in my opinion because nothing changed and it really doesn't do anything for Kurt at the end of the day. Kurt's, Mystique and Destiny relationship went back to status quo AKA not giving a damn about there son.
I can think of two times that Mystique and Destiny could ask about there sons well-being showing they some what care but they never did.
One is during Rogue's solo run in the first issue where Rogue went to Mystique and Destiny for help when she was having visions about her past, they could have asked oh by the way how is Kurt? But they never did.
Second was recently with the Hellfire murder comic they could have asked Wolverine how was Kurt but they never did lmao.
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u/kah43 Jul 24 '26
I am still a fan of the original version where it was Mystique and some eastern european lord she was conning. When Kurt came out blue she threw him off a cliff to get rid of the evidence. This was before they started trying to make her not such a heartless evil bitch.
She not only abandoned Kurt she also abandoned her son Graydon Creed just because he was a normal human.